


The Royal Heir - Two Broken People Dressed In Tweed

by Certainlittlesmile



Series: The Beaumont-Jones Chronicles [8]
Category: The Royal Romance (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:34:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26791486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Certainlittlesmile/pseuds/Certainlittlesmile
Summary: A reimagining of the final scene of The Royal Heir, Book 3, Chapter 7.
Relationships: Maxwell Beaumont/Main Character (The Royal Romance)
Series: The Beaumont-Jones Chronicles [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1641181
Comments: 6
Kudos: 12





	The Royal Heir - Two Broken People Dressed In Tweed

**Author's Note:**

> I had to write this one-shot for my own sanity, knowing it will come in for my eventual TRH fic, so thought I might as well post it now while it's relevant. Contains major spoilers, so don't read unless you've read Ch7 or you don't mind finding out what happens.

His eyes, even though they were still fixated on the fishing pole, seemed far away, as if he had somehow travelled back in time. He was fully in the memory he’d just related, no longer in the hunting lodge here with her.

She took a step towards him and brushed his arm. “Babe?”

“Oh. Hey. So yeah.” He looked back at her. “I can’t believe I’ve never told you that story before.”

She had to agree. “Did it stick in your mind as the last quality time you two had together?”

He put a gloved hand to his face, pondering. “I think when I look back.. yeah. We didn’t get much time like that, one to one, so it was easy to pinpoint it.”

She nodded, deciding it might help to share something with him. “I can’t, you know. I honestly couldn’t tell you the last time I did something like that with my mom or dad. Or both.”

He looked at her. “Really?”

“No. And that’s not because we didn’t use to do that sort of thing. Because we did. I went fishing with my dad. I cooked with my mom. We went to the theatre together, did shopping together. I went for drives with my dad when he was working weekends sometimes. They were fun.”

“You were lucky,” he sighed, looking down at his new shiny brown shoes.

“Yeah. I know. It’s just that.. before what happened happened, I had no idea that it would be the last time.”

“Oh. Well, I didn’t either that day. I mean, I knew he wasn’t well, but..”

“It all messes with your head afterwards,” she went on. “You can’t think straight. Was it the same for you with Barthelemy when he got ill?”

He sat down on the sofa. “I dunno, Jen. Maybe. I was younger than you. I mean, I knew he wasn’t well, but… it wasn’t like with mom, where I had the chance to say my goodbyes.. I honestly don’t know which was hardest.”

Jen had a thought. “So that was your last solo trip together, and that was all he said? Even though he knew he was sick?”

Maxwell nodded. “And if I was in his shoes, and I knew I’d have to say goodbye to Annabelle.. I would’ve told her how much I loved her. How proud I was of her. But, three weeks out from going into a coma, all he wanted to talk about was House Beaumont this and legacy that…”

“Sounds like your dad got his priorities completely wrong,” she suggested.

“After Dad came back, Bertrand helped me realise he had this selfish streak. But I thought it only ran so deep. I thought the good times, like that trip, still meant something. But finding this place, thinking back about it all.. Now I’m starting to see just how much was lying underneath..”

“Do you wish we hadn’t come here?”

“Not for a second. I just wish I’d known all of this sooner…” He looked desperately at her. “I’m just glad you’re here with me.”

She wrapped her arms around Maxwell’s shoulders, and he hugged her just as tightly back.

“Thanks, Jen, I’ll be okay,” she heard him sigh into her neck.

“You don’t have to, though,” she spoke softly into his ear. “You’re allowed not to be okay about all of this. I’ve got you.”

“I… I know.” He released her and stepped back, his expression glazed. “But right now, I just really need some answers.”

“I get that,” she agreed. “I need them too. More than you know. I hate to see you like this. It breaks me.”

He laughed, and she could tell it was a front. “Look at us. Two broken people dressed in tweed.”

She smiled too, as he stood up to take her hands in his. “Well, I’m just thankful I’m the lucky one who gets the chance to try and fix you.” She kissed him softly. “I love you.”

“Mmm. I’m feeling less broken already.”

“Anyway, if you want those answers so badly, we better get investigating some more, Agent Breakdance. Or should I say Sherlock Beaumont?”

He clapped his gloved hands, the sparkle coming back to his eyes. “Elementary my dear Beaumont Jones.”

“You missed a trick you know,” she said, adjusting his cap playfully. “I could have seen you in a deer hunter hat. But, in that flat cap… oh, you look so dapper…”

“Aww.” He placed his hands on his chest. “You just mended another crack in my heart!”

“Still the dream team,” she giggled.

They continued to scour the trophy room, turning over liquor bottles, useless notes, and assorted books.

“Hey, something seems off,” Jen called to Maxwell. Does this stack of books feel.. light?” 

Maxwell tutted, making his way over. “It wasn’t enough for him to betray his family, my dad had to betray litera.. oh, hey, you’re right!” He picked up the offending books. “One of these feels.. hollow?”

He looked at Jen, who nodded for him to open the book. She watched carefully, as in doing so he revealed a secret storage compartment.

She leaned in to examine the contents. “A photograph of your dad.. some letters, and.. passports?”

“The person in this photo.. their face is scratched out..” He shuddered. “Just who was my dad meeting with?”

“Let me see that..” Jen took the scratched out photo, depicting a slightly younger Barthelemy meeting with an unidentifiable figure, then turned the photograph over. “Need to lay low? And some sort of drawing.. or symbol?”

She heard Maxwell’s gasp. “This doesn’t add up, Jen. This looks like it was taken in the past few years.. but my dad’s been comatose for over a decade..”

Oh, it added up to Jen alright. “These passports, some have travel stamps from the past few years as well.”

Maxwell grabbed the passports from her hand. “Not to mention they all use aliases… and not even good ones! Bartolomeo Bonaparte? B’Artagnan Belamonte? Ughh..” He threw them back on the sideboard.

She felt herself trembling. All this made sense, but she knew it was going to be hard for him to take in. “Travelling. Laying low. Meeting with mystery people.”

“There’s something else… these letters…” Maxwell had found something else in the secret cache, and read aloud to Jen. “Duke Beaumont, your offer is generous, but I cannot condone what you’re planning to do. Find yourself a different doctor.” He shuffled some papers. “There are a few more like this, all saying the same thing…”

She felt an almighty wrench in her stomach as she pinpointed his moment of realisation. A look of anger and hurt was now fixed on his face.

“But I guess he eventually found a doctor who’d co-operate. You know what all this means, right, Jen?”

“Oh, babe. I do. I’m so sorry.”

“He was looking for a doctor who’d back his false claim..”

“So he abandoned you and Bertrand all that time… and for what? To fly around incognito and meet with other shady people?”

But he wasn’t listening. “He lied to me, Jen. He lied to everyone. And what am I going to tell Bertrand? It was bad enough when Dad left him to manage the house alone on accident.. but this..”

Jen put a hand on his shoulder. “Maxwell, I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine what you must be going through.”

He looked up at the ceiling. “This whole time… I’ve been holding out hope that maybe he wasn’t such a bad guy.. maybe there was a good reason he was doing such horrible things to us…” He looked back down, and around the room. “But I realise now. The signs were always all around me. He was always someone who valued power over loyalty. Ambition over family.” He looked into her eyes. “Honour over love.”

She put her arms around him. “We’re your family now. Me and Annabelle. Bertrand, Savannah and Bartie. Hana and Drake. Even Rick and Olivia. And we will _always_ be there for you. Despite not having a dad who could teach you the value of family, you ended up building a pretty good one.”

He was clearly fighting back tears. “Thanks, Jen. This means more to me than you’ll ever know.”

She pulled him closer, planting a kiss on his forehead as he leant into her, holding him in a warm, comforting embrace.

Eventually, she looked down at him, unsurprised to see tears in his eyes.

"Hey…”

He sniffed, and sighed. “I don’t know how I would get through all this without you, Jen.”

She smiled. “Without me, we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place, silly! There wouldn’t be an Annabelle for Barthelemy to try and take from us!”

“Yeah, but he would have found another way to try and overthrow Rick no doubt.. You heard what that guy said earlier.. he’ll stop at nothing to reach his goals… he’d sacrifice anything, or anyone… I’d still have found out the awful truth… and… I’d have been on my own with it.”

“You’ve got Bertrand, remember?”

“This is going to be hard for me to tell him. What Da.. what _Barthelemy_ did to him back then was worse than what he did to me.”

“Well, he’s certainly made up for it since,” observed Jen.

“True,” he murmured. “But, do I tell Bertrand about this?”

“Yes,” said Jen. “I can’t believe you’d even consider not telling him..”

"I can already see him saying I told you so. Mocking the misguided hope I hung on to.”

“He won’t do that. He loves you.”

“I know that. But it won’t stop him chastising me for being so optimistic about all this.”

“But, that’s what makes you beautiful,” Jen said, almost in tears herself now. “Do you remember our wedding vows?”

His expression changed. “The bit about the sharks?”

She laughed. “I meant my bit. What did I say I’d always admired about you? I still do. Every day.”

He nodded.

“Don’t ever stop being positive, Maxwell. You can move on from this. We can move on from this.”

He looked thoughtful, his blue eyes turbulent. “It’s going to be alright, isn’t it?”

“Yes. It is.”

“We’re not going to lose our girl, are we?” He looked directly at her, his eyes welling up again.

“I’d die before I let that man take Bella out of her daddy’s arms,” Jen assured him. “And I’m willing to bet you’d do the same.”

He managed a half smile. “We’re not much good to Bella if we’re dead.. unless…”

She looked knowingly at him. “Go on..”

“We could come back as awesome ghost parents. Watching over her. Taking out the school bullies. Making sure she always gets everything she wants!” He laughed. “Haunting Cordonia’s enemies, one at a time!”

“There, that’s better,” she said, caressing his face, touching his lips. “There’s the man I married.”

She moved her fingers and his lips surged into hers in a passionate kiss. She sighed, leaning into it, just happy to comfort him any way she could right now. Their kiss intensified and she toyed with his tie as he explored the fabric of her tunic with his gloved hands.

Eventually they stumbled into the arm of the sofa and he fell back onto it, taking her with him, somewhere she was definitely happy to go right now. With her body against his, she felt complete, and she could feel his response through his tweed trousers. Her hand began to move in that direction.

“BZZZT! BZZZT!”

She turned towards the drinks bar where she had left her small bag containing her phone.

“Ignore it..” she heard him groan.

She nodded, refocussing her attention on him, kissing his neck and undoing the buttons of his sweater. He brought his hands around to pull her closer to him. She sighed in contentment.

“BZZZT! BZZZT!”

She turned towards the urgent buzzing again, and released herself from his tender hold.

“Jen..”

“No, I have to get it, babe. What if it’s someone trying to warn us to get out of here?”

He nodded, understanding seeming to register on his face, and began to readjust himself as Jen stood up to get her phone.

She looked at the display, a little confused.

“Olivia?”

**Author's Note:**

> I cried at the end of this chapter, so I guess PB have something to be proud of there. But thinking about it some more, I felt a little let down by them, in that those of us who chose to marry Maxwell were a little cheated here. Not enough tailoring was done to the scene, we couldn't comfort him like we wanted to. So, I started typing :)


End file.
